Manchester Piccadilly stationOn that foggy Friday, i woke up at 8:15am in the morning and took the 9:38am train from Euston to the Manchester Piccadilly station.
view from my train window
that's me enjoying the ride!! The seats are very comfy~
city of Manchester
I arrived Manchester at 1:00pm and then I took the metrolink (the tram) to the navigation road station. From there, I walked 20 minutes to the studio of Hot animation.
outside the studio
Liz Whitaker - the director of Bob the builder and Pingu, she is super nice to me. I didn’t remember her face much, as it was so dark when I met her in the festival car that night back in Madrid. She got crystal blue eyes and long red hair. She reminded me of Meryl Streep and Kd Lang mix together. She did have a bit of an ascent, and from what I found out, she was originally from Newcastle.
Liz first showed me her office, which looked like a Kindergarden classroom, with a barrier inserted at the door, which is to stop her two big dogs from jumping out of her office. We sat down and began to talk. I really wanted to know more about her. She told me that she started off from Art school doing painting, after graduation, she did a 3 years course in animation. During the course, she learnt and tried out different kinds of animation. Amongst all the different animation genres, she loves stop motion animation the most. Since graduation, she has always been working. Most of her works are very hands on, not computer generated at all… making props, costumes for fashion figures, character models…she also worked in Amsterdam for a while on an animation series, after that job, she was employed full time at Hot Animation as a full time director. So far, she has been animating for more than 20 years.
Liz's autograph in my Animadrid Catalogue
I have prepared a lot for this visit, I bought a Bob the Builder Dvd and a Pingu Dvd for her to sign...and of course the big Animadrid catalogue. I’ve also gave her my films DVD and also some souvenirs from Hong Kong. I am glad that Mum picked up some gifts with me to give out to some very nice people that I met during this trip!
my two signed DVDs
She started showing me every part of the studio, and explaining to me the whole production process of the two animated series, starting from story creation, scripting writing, lip sync breakdown, storyboarding, art direction, puppets making....etc.
She took me to all the sets, and showed me all the props and puppets of Bob the Builder and Pingu, not only that I get to see the puppets, she even let me touch them , move them and feel the joints and skeleton of all the puppets!! I GET TO SEE HOW THE ANIMATORS WORK, and I get to ask them very practical and technical questions That is very good for me as I can really learn something from it!! All the puppets are kept in a very organized way, especially for the Pingu series, as the character in every frame of the animated movement is actually a separate model. So for example for a 6 frame jump movement, there will be 6 Pingu models. This style of animation is called “Replacement Animation”.
Pingu go fishing
The studio space is huge and there are around 75 people working there. (they will hire freelance animators when needed) I get to see all their cameras and motion control rigs, which is also memorable. I have wrote down a lot of questions for Liz and all her answers are very inspiring!
During the whole tour, animators will buzz Liz on her walkie talkie to check up on their shots, and we will rush to their set and watch the playback! Liz will give some feedbacks to them and we will move on to the next stage. Geez…that REALLY is the ultimate studio tour experience! In each set, Liz will explain certain aspect of the show, like the props, the sets or the models. For their productions, they are still taking every frame with a 16mm film camera, They will then take it to telecine and convert it back to a digiBETA master for editing and post production. I asked them why not shooting it in digital (like in the recent film Corpse Bride) is to ensure enough video resolution for the end product. But she did mention to me that they might be moving to HD resolution in the future.
This tour has really changed my view in stop motion animation . After I have touched and played with the models, I find that doing stop motion animation is actually quite fun!! And the feeling of accomplishment after finishing a shot would be much more than when I animate in COMPUTER GRAPHICS, because you are animating a real object!
Bob the Builder's Mambo Number 5~
This paragraph is for Rob -
One of the interesting places that she showed me was the sound department, they do all their sound works in-house and guess how many people works there?.....just two girls, and they basically do everything: foley, sound editing, dialogue recording, sound design, and temp mix, their gear is top notch, they are using pro tools HD and got a mixing console, foley suite, recording studio and all that!!
I was telling Liz how there are no claymation or stop motion animation industry in Asia and that is good for them because Asia don't have the talents to do it yet, so they are pretty much safe from the whole globalization trend where all the massive production are shifting to the international factory - China! I got a feeling that all the animators that works there are all very hands on and don’t like depending on 3d or any kinds computer graphics animations...haha!!
It took Liz 3 hours to show me around and she told me that she don’t usually give visitors a tour, it’s the producer that would normally do it, so that was really a special privilege for me and I am thankful for that.
on my way back to the Navigation Road tram station (manchester)
I leave their studio at 5pm. We say goodbye and gave each other one big hug!! Then…I looked at my watch…..geez..i got to run to catch my train!! So I rush back to the train station and had my 2 hours train ride back to london....after the whole day....i was just completely smashed!! For the whole day, I’ve only had a burger and some fries in the train ride back home ….but WOW…what a day!
I would never have all these experience if I didn't get in that festival car that night or talking with the Croatian Couple the following day in Madrid.
Sonja & David, you guys are my lucky star, thankyou!
~ The End ~
